


Blood

by demigodscum



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-13
Updated: 2016-02-13
Packaged: 2018-05-20 05:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5993590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/demigodscum/pseuds/demigodscum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The girl's face was transfixed. Both ice and vulnerability burned in her eyes. She had never felt more naked, exposed. She bit her lower lip just the slightest of seconds before opening her mouth and replying."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blood

TWELVE

She hated not knowing. Not knowing how to do something, what would happen seventeen years from now or happened seventeen years ago on a Tuesday too boring for history to record it. Not knowing what the woman beside her was angry about, or the meaning of a word.

It was strange. To be called something you don't understand but the nine or so people around you do. To later find yourself irrespected and indignified in the name of thousands by a boy who knew as little of the power of words as you did at the time. Alas, an insult is an insult, and when your main concern is fitting within a new world even better than those born in it, things like that are not easily forgotten. 

 

THIRTEEN

It felt good. Felt empoweringrecklessawesometotallyunlikeher. So good, in fact, that for a moment she felt ashamed of herself. But then she saw the thin line of blood, dark red as her own, running down his nose to pool between his slightly open upper and lower lip, marring his perfect, pureblood porcelain face, and she hated him a little bit more for making her gut clench and her breath rush out.

 

FIFTEEN

He was going to pay. She had been the one to come up with the training plan and had been damn proud of it, and she was not going to let that arrogant bastard ruin it like he does everything else. Neither was she going to let him and that nutcase bitch tear apart her precious school. He was going to pay hard.

Later that year, after his father was locked away where he belonged and she spotted him walking down Diagon Alley with clothes two sizes too big and even paler than he used to be, she would at times find herself secretly swimming with guilt for having helped pick apart his family. Not that that man deserved to be anywhere but Azkaban, but she was a sentimental girl with a heart too bleeding for her own good.

 

SIXTEEN

She was no longer swimming. She was drowning. It was chocking her like his hands around her neck that late night he had found her in the library a week after the Yule Ball and had whispered the level of underground she belonged in with his mouth hot on her ear. That was one of her most hated memories of him because it was the third time he had made her gut clench and her breath rush out. The second had been at the actual Ball.

If only she had listened to Harry at the beginning of that year. If only she had gotten over her petty desire for revenge for all those years of torture.

No. No, it was not her fault. He did it on his own. He was a coward for needing someone else to complete his task of murdering the one man that could help him. That was what she told herself. But at times, when the blackness was too dark and she just needed something to hold on to, she asked herself if instead, maybe, he was brave and not a coward, because it took bollocks to go against your madman of a Lord's commands. But either way, he had let the other bastards in, and leading the wolves to your friends was just as bad as leading them to their den.

 

SEVENTEEN

She was livid. He had never promised anything, never even spoken to her, but yet she still felt betrayed. Despite that he did not snitch on them at the Manor. Despite that not once did he look at her while his aunt Crucioed her. Despite those things and how he even tried to not fight in Wiltshire, he did in the finale. When it counted most. So she made damn sure she was the one to drag him back to the hell his dead father had escaped from.

 

TWENTY-ONE

It was all over the Daily Prophet. People could never get enough of their enemies' misfortunes. Could never stop being morbose for one moment to understand that yes, he deserved to be where he was, but no, it was not okay to celebrate that he tried to kill himself. Life was a serious matter, whether you wanted it or not. Death was even more serious.

Ten years from now she would ask herself why she bothered. Why she went through the drag of it all -using her connections to get the permit, asking for a portkey, security check- only to see the familiar sneer on his dirty face and the infected-looking matching scars on each of his wrists. From what she'd found out from the Head Auror a.k.a her best friend, guards here underestimate the power of handmade weapons, too used to magic and bored with their jobs to care about much. From what she was seeing with her own eyes, neither did they particularly care about the importance of properly closed wounds and the hygenic care they require. You were never supposed to have your wand close enough to a prisoner to make it possible for them to grab it, and she knew this, yet she still pulled it from her back pocket and took three steps forward.

Then it happened. That dreadful nightmare she had been convincing herself would not come true. The girl's face was transfixed. Both ice and vulnerability burned in her eyes. She had never felt more naked, exposed. She bit her lower lip just the slightest of seconds before opening her mouth and replying. By the look on his face, he had been expecting a scathing remark, an angry fuck you, at the very least a glare. Certainly not a healing spell and the tip of her wand pointed at his forearms. She had always prided herself on her indifference to that god awful word, first incident excluded. But this time... This was different. This was proof that it would never end. That a twenty-one-year-old man could continue being a nasty twelve-year-old boy even after four years of hell and an attempted but failed suicide. This time it fucking bloody well hurt, because he was there, miserable, and she was here, free. She had been the one to work most ardently to lock him up, and still he thought her equal only to the dirt staining the floor he slept on. Hope was no more an anchor for her, but a mere ideal. A possibility of something impossible. The prejudice and hate would never end, and neither would her regret.

For what, she did not yet know.

 

TWENTY-THREE

She had decided she felt bad for being naive. She had always hated it when her friends treated her like she knew nothing about the world even though she could name every potion ingredient, where and how to find it, and how to prepare it; the complete known history of magic and of Hogwarts; at least half of each of Shakespeare's plays, and knew by heart the life of every historically influential person worth knowing about. So it was only logical that she feel regret for thinking that he could ever change. She had also concluded that she wanted him to change because she saw him as an anthropology experiment. From childhood she had witnessed him at his very best and very worst; had watched him screw up his life one step after the other. Now, she had hoped that war and punishment would be enough to turn him over, but apparently not.

At least, that's what she told herself.

 

TWENTY-FOUR

He did change. She was here, free, and so was he. New Death Eaters had started to reform, and the Ministry needed the Manor to help them control the situation before it got out of control. They had never managed to take down the wards, and he was the only one still alive in his family, what with his mother dying last year in St. Mungo's. Figuring the Ministry could do him nothing more, he had refused to tell them how to break into the Manor until they let him out of that hellhole. Since neither party was willing to back down completely, they had reached an agreement. He was going out on parol, with his innecesarily-enormous house to himself after the Ministry was done, with the condition that he take down the wards and report every fifteen days before the Wizengamot and Head of Auror.

Three months later, she was promoted to Chief Warlock.

 

TWENTY-SEVEN

In her opinion, it was all a fucking waste of time. He never spoke more than absolutely necessary -even under Veritasserum-, never stopped glaring holes on their exasperated faces, never gave into anything. Apparently, he never went of his house either unless to attend the obligatory meetings. He was just... Dead. Inside. There was no other word to describe how utterly empty and lonesome he looked. His glares, though angry, didn't burn like they used to. He was rejected by society, rejected by her, and hated by himself. Because no one else thought him worth enough to spend their hate on him anymore.

 

TWENTY-EIGHT

She had to renounce to her post as Chief Warlock if she wanted to divorce. Anthony didn't want to, and as boss to every other member of the Wizengamot, the Minister had declared that it would be unjust to Goldstain if she were to continue at her job and still divorce, what with her "advantage" to sway or threaten the assigned judge to her side. Really, it was just a matter of her having not accepted the date invitation the then-not-yet-Minister had made her a long while ago. When she was twenty and he forty.

Some days she wondered why she even married Anthony at all. Her friends had never seem to completely support their relationship, and now she understood why. He was just so boring. There was nothing interesting about him once you had to spend so much time in his company, occupying job or not. With him being an Auror, she guessed Harry and Ron knew that already. But she was almost at thirty and already had a divorce –on the way, because she was quitting, if that was what it took. She supposed she had been a bit too lonely at the time, and had not wanted to admit it, because she did not consider herself one of those girls that needed a romantic relationship to feel content. It seemed that was not always the case. Maybe she could take it when it came to boyfriends, but not the lasting permanency of a family. Maybe it was hard to see her friends happily married and always come home to silence.

 

THIRTY-ONE

How devastatingly miserable do you have to be to attempt suicide twice and fail both times? This opportunity, little people new. When he had failed to show up yesterday at the Ministry, Harry and a group of his best Aurors had Apparated to Wiltshire to try and find out what was wrong. And find out they did. The wards allowed Harry through, and consequently his team, as per the Ministry's instructions.

They spotted him passed out on the floor of a tub in a stark white bathroom, red everywhere. She was currently outside of his door at St. Mungo's, gathering the supposed Gryffindor courage that seemed to have escaped her. Eventually she entered, sat down and began a staring contest with him. She lost, because Slytherins sometimes win, and her eyes ached from reading too many psycology books last night. There was no awful insult this time, and she wondered if maybe he was too tired of everything and that was why he wanted out. She asked this to no avail. Then she asked why he didn't do it with magic, now that he could and it guaranteed success. For the longest time, she waitedwaitedwaited. Stared out the window, fiddled her thumbs, traced the lines of his aristocratic features with her eyes. When her hand reached for her bag next to the chair she was sat on, he finally, finally, spoke. It was the first time she had heard him say something voluntarily since the day she visited him at Azkaban. And the fact that he had spoken before she even stood up instead of when the door was open and she would not turn back made her think that perhaps misery does love company, even hers, and so she stayed and spoke about everything and nothing until his closed lids relaxed and his breathing evened out.

I have to get it out of me.

 

THIRTY-TWO

She wondered why she bothered eleven years after –not ten– during one of the monthly monologues she ranted to him at his house ever since Mungo's. It happened out of nowhere. She had been rambling about this Muggle book she read recently. It was about an American soldier whose first mission was to work for a year at a prison at some island in the Caribbean. She eventually became friends with one of the detainees, or as close to that as a guard can get with her charge. And it was against the rules, but how wrong was it really? How harmful could it be for a human being to have sympathy for another and engage simple, basic communication? How could most condemn something so innocent as the wish to give someone the benefit of the doubt? They were already damned for life; what was the point of filling yourself with hate and rubbing salt on their wounds? Because if the world could not do that, could not treat itself with respect and compassion and forgiveness and second chances, they were without hope already. She understood that, finally. She understood what a bigoted, revengeful stupid little girl she had been. She understood that she would never understand the utter misery and hell of spending seven years with your happiness floating away on the tormented sea that surrounds the only piece of land anchoring you to the world. She understood that most people would never forgive him, starting with Harry and ending with Ron. But she did, and she wanted him to forgive her. She understood that wars were useless but unavoidable, and that the world would only be at peace when humans stopped existing, perhaps not even then. She understood that not everything was black and white; that she was not always right, and that sometimes, it went further than right or wrong, because some things change form depending on where you're standing. She understood that he may or may not forgive her, because it might be too late, and that if he refused to respond to her soliloquies she might never even know.

A month after that, the gates to the Manor did not open, and neither did they the month after that one, nor the one after the one after.

 

THIRTY-SIX

On her birthday that year, she learned from Harry that he had been living in Costa Rica, where he married a local witch and had a newborn daughter named like herself. When Harry asked her what reason he would have to name his first-born child like the girl he hated in school, she told him it was probably a common name there and his wife had chosen it.

That night, she cried herself to sleep. The day after, she rescued a half-Kneazle with silver eyes like his.

 

FORTY

It was inevitable, a matter of time. At least according to her friends. The youngest Minister of Magic in history. Celebrations included a mini-party at Ginny and Harry's, a sloppy kiss on the cheek from a drunk Ron -which earned a roll of the eyes from Lavander-, a weird-looking blue stone to protect her new office from Luna and a picture of all her friends, married and drunk, and herself, sober and single, to put on a frame on her huge desk.

She felt burdened, but in a good way. Like she was the lone responsible for the British magic world to keep functioning together. She also felt powerful, with access to everything and everyone and an office overlooking the Atrium on the eighth floor. A voice on the back of her head reminded her that amongst those things she had access to was his file, because the Ministry had a sort-of-embassador that still met with him –monthly now– to keep track of his doings. But she ignored it, because she did not want to take advantage of the trust people had put in her to do her job properly. It did not matter what she wanted. She herself had told him that last day they had seen each other that she understood the possibility of never knowing his opinion of her apology. What mattered was that she had expressed her sorrow to him one time, and that would have to do.

It was nice. How Harry's and Ron's children called her "aunt" still. Considered her so. She liked it when they stayed at her flat and watched silly movies on the "weird black box with the buttons and moving pictures". But they were getting older, and by the end of that year, it was back to her and her magical cat.

 

FIFTY

She was proud of herself. S.P.E.W. came true, after all. Elves now had the option to be hired by families or work at something else, and had privileges such as vacations, sick days and decent clothes. Of course, payment was mandatory. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures now had a small team of volunteers initiated by Hagrid's best student ever to help the tall man prevent incidents when he wished to have large or dangerous creatures at Hogwarts for a class. She dreamed of his Third Year self the day she approved that plan, his robes disheveled and stained from when he fell to the ground. There had been a much better relationship between Muggles and Wizards as of late, what with the Prime Minister being more receptive of her due to her heritage and her own influence over their Ministry. This resulted in the commencement of plans to introduce Muggle technology to their world. It was tiresome at best and downright insufferable at worst because magic did not get along very well with electricity, but they were slowly progressing.

Surprisingly, McGonagall died that year, far later than anyone expected. Apparently, she was not as old as she had seemed. She cried at the funeral, and wondered if the war had marked all of their faces that much.

 

SIXTY

Albus Severus Potter was marrying a girl he had been dating for a few years named Lily. The irony was not lost on any of them, and Harry had almost fainted or thown up the day he met her. His sister hated it but not really the girl herself, complaining that she did not, ever, wanted to hear her brother utter her own name in anything but a neutral voice. Harry had looked sick at that as well. She was stranged that Albus was only marrying now at thirty-four, but she supposed everyone had their own time and was ecstatic for the couple nonetheless.

She noticed, while she was fixing her hair for the event in front of the mirror, that the lines on her face were deeper than she had ever realized, and it made her think of her old professor and the war again.

 

SEVENTY

Despite the fact that most people in the wizarding world now had televisions, her best friends' grandchildren spent a lot of time watching silly movies at her house like their parents used to do when they were younger. She had become the perfect image of a traditional grandmother. She baked, had comfy couches, an extra bedroom, a half-Kneazle and had even developed a sweet tooth, so the kids never worried about her telling on them for eating too much cake. And she was fine with that, really. Someone had to do it, and after Anthony, she had resigned herself to never again getting married. Contrary to popular belief, she was happy as she was.

One day, Rose's son had put on a movie that had just started on the T.V. It was about an American soldier working at a prision in an island on the Caribbean.

 

NINETY

Greece was bad for her brain. She had retired seven years ago, and had been living here for one. It was beautiful, and sunny, and she had enough money saved that she could live comfortably without worrying. But no matter how hard she tried to occupy herself with short hikes and little trips and baking and renovations, it was still too much free time. Books tired her a lot lately, so she never spent a long while at it like when she was young. Her conscious was grasping at straws, anything to distract her from her thoughts. The problem of reading too much was that you knew too much for your own good.

At times she gave in and let the thoughts consume her. She remembered her years at Hogwarts, the half-assed relationship with Goldstein, the failed one with Ron even before that. Her years at the Wizengamot, the Department of Mysteries, as Minister of Magic. All the amazing, perfectly unique years of friendship with her two boys. On ocasion she got so happy over those memories and the feeling of love surging through her blood that she cried. She contemplated what would happen a few years from now when she got to her end. Pondered the pros and cons of a possible vacation to visit the snow during winter.

He always came, at the very end. When she could resist no longer. She hated it. That he took so much of her conscious and unconscious thoughts when he was so far away and had heard not a peep from him since that last update Harry had given her on her birthday a few decades ago. He came and overpowered her, clouded her mind with white and grey and redredred. She sometimes had nightmares about that color that left her sweating and trembling and wondering if he ever tried it a third time, and, if so, whether he had failed again or not. On most occasions, when she followed that train of thoughts, she felt sympathy for him. Compared to how much he had lost, he had gained so little. He lost his innocence too early. Lost his family. Lost respect. Lost his friends. Lost opportunities. Lost acceptance. Lost perfectly white arms to pitch black and faded red. Lost blood, three times. Lost the last two years of school. Lost four seasons of Quidditch and six years of House Cups. Lost happiness. Lost part of his soul to Dementors, which she had banned while still Minister of Magic. Lost his one way out of the worst of it. Lost himself, overandoverandoveragain. For what? A life excluded from most of what he knew, with a wife and a daughter whose name he probably hated but had allowed because he loved the former too much to deny her, because it had to be chosen by her, not him. Yes, he had done so much wrong, and at the end had still gotten a much better deal than the rest of them, but it still seemed unfair the inequality of that list. Because she could never, would never manage to get rid of the image of him, rocking back and forth in a fetal position on the floor of Myrtle's bathroom, crying his lungs out and muttering IhateyouIhateyouIhateyou.

She figured she did not know that much after all, because she could never, would never manage to know whether he meant Voldemort for brainwashing his father, Lucius for doing that to him, or himself for not knowing how to get out.

 

ONE HUNDRED AND TEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fin.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt, as given by my best friend, was: "The girl's face was transfixed. Both ice and vulnerability burned in her eyes. She had never felt more naked, exposed. She bit her lower lip just the slightest of seconds before opening her mouth and replying." 
> 
> In case anyone wants to know, the book and movie mentioned are an actual film called Camp X-Ray, but it's not based on any book as far as I know. In the movie, the detainee is somewhat obsessed with the Harry Potter books and especially Snape.


End file.
